


listen to the words long written down

by crickets



Category: Lost
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-22
Updated: 2009-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for lostsquee ficlet challenge</p>
    </blockquote>





	listen to the words long written down

**Author's Note:**

> written for lostsquee ficlet challenge

Jacob’s not entirely wrong about people.

Still, it doesn’t change the fact that in the worst of times, they are overrun; having to forage for sustenance, the sea emptied of its once fruitful harvest, and by the end, the ground at their feet is soaked with blood.

“We will be reborn,” Jacob assures at these moments.

Richard nods, _believes_, watches the others clean up the carnage, and tries to remember his own birth, his mother, a life before this one.

(He can never remember her face.)

\--

In the best of times, they are alone, and the jungle is bountiful, the fruit falling into their hands from the branches above.

“I can feel them,” Jacob says, a quiet afternoon in cool shade. “It won’t be long now.”

Richard reaches out, his hand at the base of Jacob’s neck, fingers twisting in the hair that’s grown out and in need of a good blade.

He doesn’t wonder then why Jacob isn’t satisfied with this, he only kisses him, tastes the citrus on his lips, thinks about the time they have, how it might turn out right this time.

\--

Richard remembers the moment he began to doubt.

There’s an attack, and in the retreat, they climb, the sounds of the monster too close. When the blue-eyed child whose hand he holds is torn from him, her small body tumbling through dirt and rock as he calls after her, too late, his faith falters.

Richard never asked why he was special, why Jacob’s agelessness, his foresight, his strength, was bestowed upon himself.

Truth is, he’d forgotten he was any different.

He remembers now.

Later, in the aftermath, with Jacob bandaging his superficial wounds, Richard allows himself to think of the man in the trees, the man they don’t talk about, allows himself to think that maybe Jacob’s been wrong all along.

\--

They separate.

The temptation for Jacob to intervene is too great.

“I’ll be there when you need me,” Jacob says, places a white stone in Richard’s hand, one Richard will later wear around his neck.

And despite his reservations, Richard believes.

“Promise me you’ll always trust me,” Jacob says.

_And he does._

\--

By the time Dharma comes and goes again, this is all a distant memory.

The ascension of a man named Ben is the second time Richard doubts. He scares Richard, his defiance, his need to rule. And Richard wants to seek out Jacob, to ask him why, _why such a leader_? But then he remembers his promise.

_Always._

\--

There’s a small explosion one day, a simple accident, and Alex – once an unwanted infant, now a tolerated young woman – arrives first.

She wants to help, but the team is beyond it and Richard knows it. He watches her at first, still and silent. Then, he grabs her by the shoulders, pulls her away, whispers in her ear.

“There’s nothing to be done.”

\--

Days later, she confronts him on the path.

“Why are you like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Alex struggles for the words, "_not_ human.”

_I’m human_, Richard wants to say, but at once he realizes she’s right. He exists on another plane, one with Jacob and the terrible burden he carries. Here, he is disengaged, apart. No. He’s not human anymore.

“No one’s ever noticed,” he answers simply.

“I noticed,” she says.

\--

Richard _wants_ to feel human again, to feel that familiar pull at his loins, the affection he used to feel for Jacob, the fear that comes along with it. So, when he runs into Alex past the trees one night, and when she asks him to walk with her, _he does_.

Alex holds his hand, walks barefoot with him after the sun sets. He carries her shoes and they sit in the moonlight.

He confesses to her that he’s never trusted her father, that he thinks she doesn’t belong here, not just the compound or the island, but this place, this island, maybe even the entire world. He tells her that she’s different.

Later, she offers him her kiss, and he lets her, savors the feel of warm skin on his again, her fingers around his neck, her weight on him when she slides into his lap. She fingers his collar, tugs out the leather cord from beneath his shirt, and closes her palm over the stone.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Someone gave it to me,” he says, “a long time ago. It’s nothing.”

And maybe he believes it.

\--

_Two nights later, a plane crashes._

And it all changes.

\--

On the day that Alex dies, Richard pulls the cord from his neck and throws it to the trees.

Doubt is all he knows, just like all the rest.

\--

It is only later, when everything shifts and the island gets quiet again, the thrumming of Alex’s name in his heartbeat subsiding, that Richard can hear him, his message in the trees, a warning, a mayday.

_Jacob._

Calling.

 

-fin


End file.
